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Topic: Might just have to do Chicks! (Read 9924 times)

Well it seems like i'm getting the fever... been on Google all day searching the net on chickens, coop's, how to care for, etc etc etc. The last two friends I made nucs for have chickens which is what started this mess. I've eatin' their eggs, yum. Ah... all I need is ANOTHER hobby!

Chickens are fun. Easy to keep. My dog stays in the chicken pen with them at night. They have free range of the pasture and yard. I have not had to buy feed in a year and a half and I still get their eggs. :-D

We drained the pond in the pasture one year and I trapped 24 coons out of the chicken pen over the next year. The best thing I done was to move the dog out there. I do not close the hens up at night because that dog thinks she is a chicken. No coons, no possums, no coyotes. Did lose one to a dog, but that is another story that will not be told here.

Chickens in my opinion are fun and easy, do you live in the city or country? If you are in the country get some guinea hens they protect my flock they scare away cats, coons, skunks, hawks, coyotes, and guineas eat lots of bugs and take core of themselves but don't get them if you are in the city. If you need any advice just PM me and I can answer your questions or point you in the right direction.

We kept guineas one year but slowly they were picked off one by one by a panther. The sole remaining hen (a white one the kids called snowball of course) was the loudest of the bunch and drove Peggy crazy. One day while Peg tried to nap, Snowball start going off. Peggy went out and shouted at it "One more sound outta you and the shot gun is commin' out"!. Can you believe that crazy bird flew two doors down (about 1/2mi) and took up in a neighbor's bushes?

We'd laugh every time we heard that bird go off over there.

At our annual yule party where we all (from the area) burn our Christmas trees the neighbor where the bird was staying said she had to call her son to come take Snowball out to a farm...it had been driving her nuts for almost a year! :lau:

Scott

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I live in the county but I can spit in the city. :-D City limit is as the end of my street. I take it guinea hens are noisy???

I just checked Craiglist for my area and was quite surprised how many folks in the surrounding area sell chicks and year old hens.

...DOUGKD4MOJ

Noisy is not the word for it. Before you jump into that one I would find someone that has them and go for a listen. They are not only loud, they are very nosey. Coarse they are really great eating if they dont work out.

Skip the guineas I have had macaws to and I think guineas are louder :) It is pretty easy to find chicks right now, just keep in mind pullets are females, and cockerals are males, straight run are un-sexed. I sell my chicks on CL st run for $2 each that is here in MN anything more then $3 for chicks in my opinion is not a good price unless it some specialty breed

Check out chicken tractors, it's the benefit of free range and the protection of always having the penned. Also check out Easter egger chickens, you can get blue, green, pink, brown, or somewhere in between colored eggs.

take a look a Isa Browns. They are medium size so eat less but lay large to x-large eggs. Although people will say its impossible on once in a while they will lay 2 eggs a day. I had 75 of these and every day would end up with 75 to 80 eggs a day. also they are like a sex link so when you order pullets thats all you get. They are not broody. One more thing is you dont need a rooster

Guineas are fun and eat lots of ticks. But they are loud! Chickens can be loud too. My black Australorps seems very vocal. My favorite chickens are my golden laced wyandottes. Very friendly, good layers, not broody.

chickens were in my plan this year also. cleared the old coop of the blackberries, but found the base to be to rotten to bother with. it's going to get pushed over with the tractor when i have time.

that meant i had to build a new coop and ran out of time. had to fix up the rental before i could build a coop :-(. thought about just getting a shed from costco and i think it would work fine, but by the time i got to that, the chicks had come and gone from the feed store.

so...it's still in the plan and i can probably still find chickens on CL, but the whole thing got moved to the back burner........

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Check out chicken tractors, it's the benefit of free range and the protection of always having the penned. Also check out Easter egger chickens, you can get blue, green, pink, brown, or somewhere in between colored eggs.

Just checked out some of the EE's on "my pet checkin'" .com. They have lots of info for reading and I've been checking out the different breeds.